Idler, which it was necessary should be in London the next day. Mr.
Langton having signified a wish to read it, 'Sir, (said he) you shall
not do more than I have done myself.' He then folded it up and sent it
off.

1759: AETAT. 50.]--In 1759, in the month of January, his mother died at
the great age of ninety, an event which deeply affected him; not that
'his mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation of mortality;'
but that his reverential affection for her was not abated by years, as
indeed he retained all his tender feelings even to the latest period of
his life. I have been told that he regretted much his not having gone
to visit his mother for several years, previous to her death. But he was
constantly engaged in literary labours which confined him to London; and
though he had not the comfort of seeing his aged parent, he contributed
liberally to her support.

Soon after this event, he wrote his Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia;
concerning the publication of which Sir John Hawkins guesses vaguely
and idly, instead of having taken the trouble to inform himself with
authentick precision. Not to trouble my readers with a repetition of
the Knight's reveries, I have to mention, that the late Mr. Strahan the
printer told me, that Johnson wrote it, that with the profits he might
defray the expence of his mother's funeral, and pay some little debts
which she had left. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he composed it in
the evenings of one week, sent it to the press in portions as it was
written, and had never since read it over. Mr. Strahan, Mr. Johnston,
and Mr. Dodsley purchased it for a hundred pounds, but afterwards paid
him twenty-five pounds more, when it came to a second edition.

Voltaire's Candide, written to refute the system of Optimism, which it